Trial periods working well

Stuff reported:

In practice, an employment agreement containing a trial period must be given to a prospective employee at the same time as, and as part of, making a job offer. An employee is entitled to know that his or her employment will be subject to a trial period before accepting the job offer.

The cases have also shown that trial period clauses, which do not state that an employer can dismiss an employee during the trial period and that an employee cannot bring a personal grievance in respect of the dismissal, will be unenforceable.

A common misconception is that trial periods effectively extinguish all of an employee’s legal rights for the first 90 days of employment. When it appears the employee’s performance or attitude is not meeting requirements, there is still an obligation to address this during the trial period. An employer who takes no steps to deal with performance shortcomings during a trial period and dismisses an employee on the 89th day of the trial period may well face claims of unjustified disadvantage and breach of the duty of good faith.

As part of this duty of good faith, the Court has also said that an employer should, if asked, provide an explanation or reasons for the dismissal to the employee. This is because an employee should not be deprived of the ability to learn from an unsuccessful trial period even though the employee has a limited ability to challenge that.

So all the claims that an employer can sack you on day 89 for no reason, and refuse to tell you why has proven false.

Will Labour retain their promise to repeal the law, and be the only OECD country without a trial period?